Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Sunday accused President Barack Obama of “emboldening the Taliban,” in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) addresses an event held by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) January 8, 2014 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Rubio spoke on reforming antipoverty programs and improving income mobility in the United States.

The conservative senator, widely expected to launch a bid for the White House in 2016, was reacting to a new book by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates when he made the allegations.

“I don’t think we can ignore what’s in that book and I think, for many of us it confirms our worst fears,” Rubio said. “And that is that this is an administration full of people that either have the wrong convictions or, in the case of former Secretary Clinton, lack the courage of her convictions.”

The senator, who said he would have preferred Gates not release his book until the president was out of office, continued to hammer at Obama, arguing the main driving force behind his policy decisions is politics.

“You saw that reflected in the decision that (Obama) made,” Rubio said. “At the same time that he announced the surge, he also announced an exit date and strategy, thereby emboldening the Taliban to believe they could wait us out.”

[sharequote align=”center”]”Our allies see us as unreliable and our enemies feel emboldened.”[/sharequote]

“Our allies see us as unreliable and our enemies feel emboldened,” he continued. “I think that this confirms our worst fears, that this is an administration that lacks a strategic foreign policy and, in fact, is largely driven by politics and tactics.”

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